Ralph Nader: Eight More Years?

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Published on Saturday, January 26, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

Eight More Years?
by Ralph Nader

For Bill and Hillary Clinton, the ultimate American dream is eight more
years. Yet how do you think they would react to having dozens of partisans
at their rallies sporting large signs calling for EIGHT MORE YEARS, EIGHT
MORE YEARS?

Don’t you have the feeling that they would cringe at such public displays of
their fervent ambition which the New York Times described as a “truly
two-for-the-price-of-one” presidential race? It might remind voters to
remember or examine the real Clinton record in that peaceful decade of
missed opportunities and not be swayed by the sugarcoating version that the
glib former president emits at many campaign stops.

The 1990’s were the first decade without the spectre of the Soviet Union.
There was supposed to be a “peace dividend” that would reduce the vast,
bloated military budget and redirect public funds to repair or expand our
public works or infrastructure.

Inaugurated in January 1993, with a Congress controlled by the Democratic
Party, Bill Clinton sent a small job-creating proposal to upgrade public
facilities. He also made some motions for campaign finance reform which he
promised during his campaign when running against incumbent George H.W. Bush
and candidate Ross Perot.

A double withdrawal followed when the Congressional Republicans started
roaring about big spending Democrats and after House Speaker Tom Foley and
Senate Majority Leader, George Mitchell, told Clinton at a White House
meeting to forget about legislation to diminish the power of organized money
in elections.

That set the stage for how Washington politicians sized up Clinton. He was
seen as devoid of modest political courage, a blurrer of differences with
the Republican opposition party and anything but the decisive transforming
leader he promised to be was he to win the election.

He proceeded, instead, to take credit for developments with which he had
very little to do with such as the economic growth propelled by the huge
technology dot.com boom.

Bragging about millions of jobs his Administration created, he neglected to
note that incomes stagnated for 80% of the workers in the country and ended
in 2000, under the level of 1973, adjusted for inflation.

A brainy White House assistant to Mr. Clinton told me in 1997 that the only
real achievement his boss could take credit for was passage of legislation
allowing 12 weeks family leave, without pay.

There are changes both the Clinton Administration actively championed that
further entrenched corporate power over our economy and government during
the decade. He pushed through Congress the NAFTA and the World Trade
Organization (WTO) agreements that represented the greatest surrender in our
history of local, state and national sovereignty to an autocratic, secretive
system of transnational governance. This system subordinated workers,
consumers and the environment to the supremacy of globalized commerce.

That was just for starters. Between 1996 and 2000, he drove legislation
through Congress that concentrated more power in the hands of giant
agribusiness, large telecommunications companies and the biggest
jackpot-opening the doors to gigantic mergers in the financial industry. The
latter so-called “financial modernization law” sowed the permissive seeds
for taking vast financial risks with other peoples’ money (ie. pensioners
and investors) that is now shaking the economy to recession.

The man who pulled off this demolition of regulatory experience from the
lessons of the Great Depression was Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Robert
Rubin, who went to work for Citigroup-the main pusher of this oligopolistic
coup-just before the bill passed and made himself $40 million for a few
months of consulting in that same year.

Bill Clinton’s presidential resume was full of favors for the rich and
powerful. Corporate welfare subsidies, handouts and giveaways flourished,
including subsidizing the Big Three Auto companies for a phony research
partnership while indicating there would be no new fuel efficiency
regulations while he was President.

His regulatory agencies were anesthetized. The veteran watchdog for Public
Citizen of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Sidney Wolfe, said that
safety was the worst under Clinton in his twenty nine years of oversight.

The auto safety agency (NHTSA) abandoned its regulatory oath of office and
became a consulting firm to the auto industry. Other agencies were similarly
asleep-in job safety (OSHA) railroads, household product safety, antitrust,
and corporate crime law enforcement.

By reappointing avid Republican Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal
Reserve, Mr. Clinton assured no attention would be paid to the visible
precursors of what is now the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Mr. Greenspan,
declined to use his regulatory authority and repeatedly showed that he
almost never saw a risky financial instrument he couldn’t justify.

Mr. Clinton was so fearful of taking on Orrin Hatch, the Republican Chair of
the Senate Judiciary Committee, that he cleared most judicial appointments
with the Utah Senator. He even failed to put forth the nomination of
sub-cabinet level official, Peter Edelman, whose credentials were superb to
the federal appeals court.

Mr. Edelman resigned on September 12th, 1996. In a memo to his staff, he
said, “I have devoted the last 30-plus years to doing whatever I could to
help in reducing poverty in America. I believe the recently enacted welfare
bill goes in the opposite direction.”

Excoriated by the noted author and columnist, Anthony Lewis, for his dismal
record on civil liberties, the man from Hope set the stage for the Bush
demolition of this pillar of our democracy.

To justify his invasion of Iraq, Bush regularly referred in 2002-2003 to
Clinton’s bombing of Iraq and making “regime change” explicit U.S. policy.

But it was Clinton’s insistence on UN-backed economic sanctions in contrast
to just military embargos, against Iraq, during his term in office. These
sanctions on civilians, a task force of leading American physicians
estimated, took half a million Iraqi children’s lives.

Who can forget CBS’s Sixty Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl’s tour through
Baghdad’s denuded hospitals filled with crying, dying children? She then
interviewed Mr. Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeline Albright and asked
whether these sanctions were worth it. Secretary Albright answered in the
affirmative.

Bill Clinton is generally viewed as one smart politician, having been twice
elected the President, helped by lackluster Robert Dole, having survived the
Lewinsky sex scandal, lying under oath about sex, and impeachment. When is
it all about himself, he is cunningly smart.

But during his two-term triangulating Presidency, he wasn’t smart enough to
avoid losing his Party’s control over Congress, or many state legislatures
and Governorships.

It has always been all about him, Now he sees another admission ticket to
the White House through his wife, Hillary Clinton. EIGHT MORE YEARS without
a mobilized, demanding participating citizenry is just that-EIGHT MORE
YEARS. It’s small wonder that the editors of Fortune Magazine headlined an
article last June with the title, “Who Business is Betting On?” Their
answer, of course, was Hillary Clinton.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book
is The Seventeen Traditions.